


Nothing to Talk About

by tommygirl



Category: Alias
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-13
Updated: 2011-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-14 17:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tommygirl/pseuds/tommygirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during season three, Sydney tries to set boundaries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing to Talk About

  
_I am lost so I am cruel, but I'd be love and sweetness if I had you_ \- "Milk" by Garbage

They had nothing to say to each other, which was somewhat surprising considering the amount left unsaid between the two of them. Sydney stared at him for some time, caught between the urge to hug him and throttle the life out of him for disappearing from her life the way he had. She couldn’t understand how Vaughn, the man she had come to know over time, could have given up so easily on her. There were things she _wanted_ to say of course, things she had rehearsed in her mirror and dreamt about, but she couldn’t do that to him. The good angel on her shoulder would plead, “He’s suffered enough, Sydney. This is what you have to do for him.”

Sometimes she wished she could push the stupid angel off her shoulder and smush it like a roach. She had the right to be angry, the right to her confusion and overwhelming emotions and time away from him. He couldn’t even give her that. He was her partner for god’s sake, always so close but _ohsofaraway_ , reminding her of what was and leaving her with nothing but whatcould’vebeen nights.

So they stared at each other—awkward and offputting—and said nothing because it seemed…safer…somehow. It was a game of avoidance dodgeball, step to the left, duck, step back, repeat, damn just got hit in the face.

Sydney smiled at him and said, “Hey.”

“Hey,” he replied. He continued to stare at her until he finally looked away, focusing on something much more intriguing beyond her.

This was her sign. They did that with one another now. Little subtleties to let the other know that things were different now and that they couldn't converse as freely as once before.

“Syd, wait,” she heard him call out to her. He was running now. She heard the echo of his polished shoes scratching against the linoleum flooring. She stopped moving and pretended not to react when his hand rested on her shoulder as he turned her around to face him. He breathed out, “I don’t want—you’re too—we work well together and I don’t want—“

She closed her eyes. There were things she hoped he would say. That he still loved her. That he never married Lauren and it had all been a sick joke. That he was, as always, all hers. Those thoughts faded fast though because underneath it all was the truth. He had moved on.

He wasn't hers and with the ease he got over her, she wondered if he ever was.

“I don’t want to have this conversation,” she forced out, interrupting his attempts at explanations. She was sick of explanations and feeling guilty for coming back.

“Syd...”

“Vaughn,” she said. That was all that came out. She was often credited with possessing strength and poise, but she felt neither of those things at the moment. She looked down for a moment, forcing her thoughts to formulate coherently, and replied, “I am lost right now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she replied. For the first time since her return, she hated the confining qualities of the operations center. Light pouring down from fluorescent bulbs, the gray paint with the seals of those who died in action and pictures of the president clogging the walls. She glanced around, wishing there was a window to jump through. A way to make it to the light and fresh air and no one looking at her with pity in their eyes, eyes screaming, “Things were so much easier when I thought you were dead.”

“Well, I am.”

“I don’t care.”

He winced at the veracity of her words and repeated, “I’m sorry.”

“Go away, Vaughn,” Sydney replied. She met his gaze and said, “I can’t keep doing this. Things aren’t working out. We’ve tried the buddy routine. We’ve tried avoiding one another. It’s not working. Nothing works.”

“What would you have me do?”

“I don’t know, but we have to do something. We can’t keep pretending everything’s okay.”

“Sydney…”

Cutting off ties with Vaughn was going to be difficult. Not only because they worked in the same building or went on the same missions. That was nothing compared to the hatred that coursed through her veins whenever she laid eyes on Lauren. She imagined Lauren and Vaughn sneaking off to the places that the two of them used to go to. She could see them with the white picket fence as Vaughn drove up, hopped out of the car, and swung their young child around in his arms. All those things _she_ fantasized about for _them_ while lying in his arms at night were all the same things that haunted her now.

She folded her arms. It was her protective stance and she knew he could read that well enough, but she’d be damned if she cried about this anymore. She said, “I have to be cruel, Vaughn, or maybe you have to be, I don’t know.”

“What?”

“If you were still mine...you can’t keep acting like things haven’t changed between us. I’m holding on by a thread and when you’re polite to me, it makes things that much worse,” Sydney replied.

Vaughn sighed and it only further fueled Sydney’s anger. She decided that this was a habit he picked up from Lauren because he never used to respond with sighs—it was so dramatic, so Shakespearean and she almost expected him to utter some Macbeth soliloquy. Instead, he fidgeted in his place and pulled a thread coming out of the cuff of his jacket. After more silence, he asked, “Do you think this is easy for me, Syd?”

“I can’t worry about you anymore, Vaughn. I have to stop.”

He ignored her and said, “I hate the sound of phones ringing in the middle of the night. First, it was to tell me that they found your remains…and then it was to tell me that you had shown up in Hong Kong. Every time that phone rings at night, it’s another reminder of what we lost.”

“Stop. Just stop doing this,” Sydney replied, her voice taking on a beseeching tone she wasn’t accustomed to. “This has to stop, Vaughn. I still love you and I need to find a way to make that go away. You have to let me do that.”

Sydney didn’t wait for a response. She hurried down the long, narrow hallway, reminding herself to inhale and exhale with each step. Now it was her turn to behave histrionically—flipping her hair over her shoulders, making her brown eyes ooze with whatever eyes ooze with in times of conflict, and running off down a long hallway while the man she loved called out behind her.

There was nothing left to say.

_{/fin}_


End file.
